This, that, and the other

(Pic (c) The Guardian)

Watching England labour to an uninspiring 0-0 draw with Algeria reminded me of the frustration I often feel when playing FIFA 09 on the Wii.

When the player I'm controlling in the game moves forward, he usually has no options on because his team-mates are standing, static and dis-interested, right next to an opponent. This kind of behaviour is perhaps excusable from the pixelated characters of a video game, but less so from England's mighty heroes, who are supposedly capable of bringing the World Cup home, but on recent evidence would struggle to win the Setanta Shield.

Plenty has already been written about the Algeria match, which in terms of entertainment and quality ranked alongside the United v Chester game last season as one of the worst 90 minutes of football I've ever seen, so I won't say too much more, except that it brought to mind a quote from Pete Davies in his excellent book on Italia 90, All Played Out. Following England's draw with Ireland in that tournament, Davies remarked that, while the rest of the world were trying to put on a show, the teams from the British Isles were "stinking the place out" with their terrible football. Twenty years on it seems little has changed - we still stink.

Back home, Lingy is back from his holidays, and as you will have seen, has completed the signing of Forest Green's Conal Platt. I'm not going to pretend to know anything about him, but on the surface he would appear to be a good signing; experienced enough to know what the Conference is all about, but young enough to improve as we progress. But as a left-winger with the initials CP, he has a hard act to follow, and I hope he is up to the challenge of filling Courtney's giant shorts. Not literally of course, that would be impossible.

Over in the village of the damned, JB is licking his wounds after being gazumped by the mighty, er, Halesowen in his quest to bring in a new centre back. He has apparently now turned his attentions to players from France in a bid to unearth the new Armand One.

"Using my contacts and managerial know-how, I jumped on a plane and went and saw some players at a showcase in Paris. A couple looked like they might be able to do a job for Histon Football Club, so we're looking at the logistics of bringing them over and having another look at them," he told the CEN. Sounds like a winner to me, anyone got Kingsley Mbome's number?